The Wesleyan International Relations Association would like to invite you to its 2011 Conference, “Deciphering Pakistan and US-Pakistan Relations,” organized in collaboration with the Wesleyan Pakistan Flood Relief Initiative and Wesleyan South Asian Studies Faculty.

The conference aims to increase understanding and awareness about Pakistan from its culture to its politics. The conference will also focus on US-Pakistan relations, which have both strained and strengthened after 9/11. The conference’s speakers are among the top commentators, officials and scholars on Pakistan and US-Pakistan relations, and the event will be open to the students, faculty and the larger public.

Panelists and guest speakers include:
Shahid Javed Burki is a professional economist who has served as Finance Minister of Pakistan and as a Vice President of the World Bank. He has written extensively on economic development and on the political history of Pakistan.
Ambassador Howard B. Schaffer is a retired American Foreign Service officer who spent much of his 36-year career dealing with U.S. relations with South Asia.
Asim Khwaja is the Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School and the faculty chair of the MPA/ID program.
Najam Sethi is the editor-in-chief of The Friday Times, a Lahore based political weekly, and the Editor-in-Chief of Geo News. He is the only journalist from Asia to receive three international press freedom awards in a decade.
Humeira Iqtidar is currently a research fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies and at King’s College, Cambridge University. Her research is concerned with secularisation, secularism, feminism and Islamism.
Stanley Wolpert is an American historian, biographer and novelist and also an emeritus professor of History in University of California, Los Angeles.
Najeeb Ghauri is the founder, Chairman and CEO of NetSol Technologies, Inc. Mr. Ghauri is heavily involved in political and non-governmental organizations committed to US-Pakistan relations, particularly the US-Pakistan Business Council (vice president) and the Pakistan Human Development Fund (founding board member).
Mehreen Jabbar is a noted Pakistani film-maker and television director/producer. She directed the Pakistani film “Ramchand Pakistani”, which won the Audience Award of the Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland.
Imran Aziz Mian, a highly popular Qawwal from Pakistan, transfers the passion of his Qawwalis to his audience in live performances.The conference schedule is as follows:

Friday, September 30th:

4-6:30pm: Screening of Ramchand Pakistan followed by a discussion with the film’s Director Mehreen Jabbar
Free Entry

I am a member of Wesleyan’s Amnesty International chapter, and I wanted to let you and your Africa in World Politics class know about an exciting event that we are holding next Tuesday, the 13th that we think you may be interested in.

We are welcoming back to campus representatives from the organization Invisible Children, a group committed to working with, for, and on behalf of child soldiers in Central Africa. We hosted a successful event with them last Spring, and hope to draw an even larger audience this time. They will be showing their new documentary, entitled “The Rescue” (you can see a trailer here: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/videos/3946581) and leading a discussion and question-and-answer session about their important work. WesAmnesty will be providing free food.

The event will take place at 6PM on September 13th in Exley 150. We would greatly appreciate it if you would mention this event to your students and consider coming yourself – based on their presentation last year we know that they deliver extremely a hard-hitting and thought-provoking message.

May we ask for your help in sharing information on the International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE) program in Johannesburg, South Africa with students who may be interested? Our application deadline for the Spring 2012 semester is October 15, 2011. We thank you in advance for your assistance. Please find a brief description below.

International Human Rights Exchange
Johannesburg, South Africa

The International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE) is the world’s only full-semester, multidisciplinary program in human rights for undergraduate students. The program is based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Joahnnesburg, South Africa and is a joint venture with Bard College. Each semester students and faculty from Africa and North America come together to participate in a deep and multifaceted intellectual engagement in human rights. In addition to a required core course, students choose from 12 or more electives exploring human rights from the perspective of a variety of academic disciplines.

IHRE also opens up possibilities for substantive participation in human rights work. Students enrolled in the Engagement with Human Rights course intern with an NGO working on contemporary rights in post-apartheid South Africa. Students also explore human rights challenges in rural South Africa through a Community Human Rights Workshop, visit the Apartheid Museum and other relevant sites, and attend guest lectures from human rights experts from South Africa and around the world.